Wednesday, February 1, 2012

It seemed like a good idea to ride the Vespa to work this morning instead of the Triumph, so I did. The first third of my ride was entirely conventional, but then I arrived at a stoplight next to a pair of chopped hawgs. They had the requisite loud exhaust and goofy beanie helmets and looked like a couple of bad motherfuckers, so I assume they were dentists.

The three of us were turning left. The intersection we were at had two left turn lanes, and I was in the inside lane, while they were in the other. I had stopped somewhat behind them, as I wasn't in the mood for conversation.

The light changed, and I paused before taking off, wanting to give them a chance to get moving. I assumed they would roar ahead and be out of hearing range within a couple minutes. Only they didn't. It looked to me like they just didn't know which of the two of them should go first.

So I grabbed a big handful of throttle (relatively speaking. It's a Vespa, after all) and sped through the turn, whizzing past the two of them and leaning over pretty hard. As it worked out, I ended up leading the pack for a couple miles, which entertained me to no end. It's hard to look tough when you're following a dude on a Vespa - even if that dude is me.

The problem with the Vespa, though it's a good problem, is that the thing is so zippy, and so maneuverable, it ends up being really, really difficult to ride responsibly. Why be responsible when it's so much fun to cause a ruckus?